Horrible, fascist and poorly acted

Brilliant and touching

Absolutely Fantastic

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

Well, Canet and Geraldine beat Cassel and Bellucci but at the end, both movies should be taken with gloves. It's funny to see that Canet does a lot of losers, destructive characters and he is rather good here. Unlike Hollywood productions and similar to British spy literature, the case is not a question of technology but relies on ground job. For a french movie, it's a good thing that the action happens in London because for one time, we discovered the real city (more beautiful and easy than Paris !). But Geraldine is a bit transparent as the french wife being probed. Furthermore, the audience isn't candid and when a country releases a movie paying tribute to its intelligence services, we know what we can expect

This film started out very exciting and than slid into one of the most average films I have ever seen. There was absolutely no surprises in this film whatsoever. The acting was excellent and the UK setting was just perfect but nothing is really happening other than the obvious. One of the most forgettable french films I have seen in the last 10 years. I did like the main character and I think if he was given more to work with, this could've been a terrific acting performance but unfortunately it was just average at best. Skip this one and watch Tell No One or Anthony Zimmer instead. Make sure it is Anthony Zimmer though and not that horrible remake with Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp called the Tourist.

I was looking forward to this bilingual European movie. However it turned out to be quite preposterous. The music was very good, cinematography reasonably good, interesting locations. But it became hard to believe in the characters, especially the leading man. On the one hand he is a thief, he drinks incessantly, using drugs frequently and yet he is set up to portray a doctor involved in international humanitarian work and has to pull that off against masterful forces in espionage. Not only does he tackle characters written as heavyweights in the spy business, but he clearly defies those who are giving him a break and then unbelievably gets caught up in tearful grieving for one of the characters whom he is disobeying. The script seems to have been written as the movie proceeded from one scene to another. There is no real connectivity or logic to the protagonists actions whether in his role as the humanitarian or as the hapless degenerate druggie who got caught out. The premise of using such a loser for an important international espionage event boggles the mind. The principal women of the film while reasonable good actors and very attractive really are unable to pull off two of the films turning point events, solely because of the impracticality and unbelievability of their tasks - again, it looks like a script written on the fly. Finally, what is it about films that have the central stars locate each other in one of the world's busiest airports? Most of us have trouble finding a washroom.

Writer-director Nicolas Saada used to be with Cahiers du Cinema and those of us who remain unpretentious and non-brainwashed know that Cahiers du Cinema like Nouvelle Vague is French for s**t so we approach this movie with low expectations and are not disappointed. I accept that the glaring geographical errors - 1) Vincent is following Claire down a London street, in voice-over an MI5 operative says 'she's heading for the Burlington Arcade'. Bulls**t, she's nowhere near the place, which runs off Piccadilly. Next shot she is in the Burlington Arcade and so is Vincent; he suggests coffee, she agrees; there are probably thirty or forty suitable establishments within two or three minutes of the Burlington Arcade yet, for reasons unexplained, they are seen, moments later, in the East End. They may have got away with it had not Saada elected to linger on a street sign that read Hoosier St, E.C.1. Example 2) Some time later Vincent is pursuing a suspect on the London Underground. The train pulls into a station and the announcer says 'Camden Town'. This tells us that Vincent is on the Northern Line, the only one to stop at Camden Town, BUT, Camden Town is where two divergent branches of the Northern Line converge so EVERY announcement says either 'Camden Town-High Barnet branch', and/or 'Camden Town-Edgeware branch' in the case of Northbound trains or else 'Camden Town - Bank branch, Camden Town - Charing Cross branch' for Southbound trains. More? Whilst the train is at rest in Camden Town another voice-over from monitoring MI5 says 'Vincent is following the suspect, they are heading for Ladbroke Grove'. Quite a trick as Ladbroke Grove is on the Metropolitan Line and no one on a Northern Line train could possibly be heading there. Okay, if you're watching the movie in France, America or even rural England you won't care about this because you won't know there is anything wrong but nevertheless it represents SLOPPY writing and/or research; if you get the small things right you have more chance of getting the Big things right. Guillaume Canet is saddled with the lead, an ordinary guy obliged to work for the French Secret Service; chances are he's never handled a gun in his life yet in a climactic shootout he manages to nail a gang of pros. Incroyable. On the other hand there is some great eye-candy. The French turn out gorgeous actresses by the yard and the joke is they can all actually ACT. Geraldine Pailhas could be described as Audrey Hepburn-lite but alas, she is spoken for by - and may even be married to - Daniele Thompson's son, Christopher. Guillaume Canet also writes and directs movies and he could shoot something ten times better than this with the lens cap on.